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The House Financial Services Committee has scheduled a series of full committee hearings starting on Thursday, July 9, to mark the fifth anniversary of the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act into law, according to an announcement from the Committee.
The series of three hearings will examine the effect of the 2,300-page law on the financial system in America and how the law has "left Americans with less freedom, less prosperity, and a less stable financial future," according to the announcement from the Committee.
The first hearing, titled "Dodd-Frank Five Years Later: Are We More Stable?" will begin Thursday, July 9, at 10 a.m. Eastern time. The second hearing, titled "Dodd-Frank Five Years Later: Are We More Prosperous?" is scheduled for July 28. The date of the third hearing in the series, titled "Dodd-Frank Five Years Later: Are We More Free?" will be announced later, according to the Committee.
"Whether we like it or not, Dodd-Frank is the single most sweeping rewrite of our financial services laws since the New Deal," Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) said. "We would be negligent if we did not constantly monitor its implementation and impact."
The Congressman pointed out that Dodd-Frank was signed into law five years ago by President Obama with much fanfare and celebration, and among the promises that came with the law were that it would "lift the economy," end "too big to fail," and "increase financial stability." The controversial law has failed to deliver on all of those, he said.
"Instead, five years later the big banks are bigger, the small banks are fewer and the economy remains moribund," Hensarling said. "Low- and moderate-income Americans have lost free checking, seen small business lines of credit evaporate, and it’s now harder for them to achieve financial independence. Never before has more unchecked discretionary authority been given to unaccountable government bureaucrats. Regrettably, the result is less freedom, fewer and more expensive choices, and reduced upward mobility for low and moderate income Americans."
Witnesses scheduled to testify at the July 9 hearing include Paul Atkins, CEO of Patomak Global Partners and former commissioner of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; Dr. Mark Calbria, Director of Financial Regulation Studies at the Cato Institute; Damon Silvers, Director of Policy and Special Counsel at the American Federation of Labor – Congress of Industrial Organizations; and Professor Todd Zywicki, Foundation Professor of Law and Executive Director of the Law and Economics Center, George Mason University School of Law. Click here to view a Committee memorandum.
"This hearing will provide the Committee an opportunity to examine, through a study both of specific provisions of the law and their cumulative impact, the effect of the Dodd-Frank Act five years after its enactment on the financial services industry, consumers, American competitiveness, and financial stability," the Committee said in a statement.
Click here to view the July 9 Committee hearing live starting at 10 a.m. Eastern time.
Hensarling will deliver an address at an event at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C., on the same topic on July 21, which is the actual five-year anniversary of the passage of Dodd-Frank. Click here to view Hensarling's address at the AEI live on July 21. The event starts at 1 p.m. Eastern time.
The House Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Consumer Credit has a hearing titled "Examining the Designation and Regulation of Bank Holding Company SIFIs" scheduled for Wednesday, July 8, starting at 1 p.m. Eastern time. Click here to view a Committee memorandum for that hearing.
